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Amazon.co.uk Review
Disgrace takes as its complex central character 52-year-old English professor David Lurie whose preoccupation with Romantic poetry--and romancing his students--threatens to turn him into a "a moral dinosaur". Called to account by the University for a passionate but brief affair with a student who is ambivalent about his embraces, David refuses to apologise, drawing on poetry before what he regards as political correctness in his claim that his "case rests on the rights of desire." Seeking refuge with his quietly progressive daughter Lucie on her isolated small holding, David finds that the violent dilemmas of the new South Africa are inescapable when the tentative emotional truce between errant father and daughter is ripped apart by a traumatic event that forces Lucie to an appalling disgrace. Pitching the moral code of political correctness against the values of Romantic poetry in its evocation of personal relationships, this novel is skillful--almost cunning--in its exploration of David's refusal to be accountable and his daughter's determination to make her entire life a process of accountability. Their personal dilemmas cast increasingly foreshortened shadows against the rising concerns of the emancipated community, and become a subtle metaphor for the historical unaccountability of one culture to another.
The ecstatic critical reception with which Disgrace has been received has insisted that its excellence lies in its ability to encompass the universality of the human condition. Nothing could be farther from the truth, or do the novel--and its author--a greater disservice. The real brilliance of this stylish book lies in its ability to capture and render accountable--without preaching--the specific universality of the condition of whiteness and white consciousness. Disgrace is foremost a confrontation with history that few writers would have the resources to sustain. Coetzee's vision is unforgiving--but not bleak. Against the self-piteous complaints of all declining cultures and communities who bemoan the loss of privileges that were never theirs to take, Coetzee's vision of an unredeemed white consciousness holds out--to those who reach towards an understanding of their position in history by starting again, with nothing--the possibility of "a moderate bliss." --Rachel Holmes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
" Coetzee is able to dissect the human psyche with a surgeon's touch." -- "The Hamilton Spectator"
" Marvellous." -- "The National Post"
" Disgrace is a subtle, multilayered story, as much concerned with politics as it is with the itch of male flesh. Coetzee's prose is chaste and lyrical -- it is a relief to encounter writing as quietly stylish as this." -- "Independent"
" Disgrace is at the frontier of world literature." -- "Sunday Telegraph"
" J.M. Coetzee's vision goes to the nerve-centre of being. What he finds there is more than most people will ever know about themselves, and he conveys it with a brilliant writer's mastery of tension and elegance." -- Nadine Gordimer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bleak and uncompromising,
By A Customer
This review is from: Disgrace (Paperback)
This is a depressing read! One by one, the ideals of a modern, liberal society - education, tolerance, justice, dignity - are stripped away. And the thin veneer of civilization gives way to the elemantal and destructive forces that lie not far beneath society's surface. It is interesting that I was left feeling that it was the white characters in the novel who had somehow been abused - that their descent into chaos was somehow more appalling than the lot of the black characters who have borne injustice for generations. Coetzee cleverly plays on our fears of the norm being overturned - however unjust - and induces helpelessness both in his white characters (the 'dogs') and his readers. This is not an enjoyable book, but it is thought provoking.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good writing perhaps, but hardly a great novel,
By Phil O'Sofa (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Disgrace (Paperback)
This is one of the best Booker-prize winners I've read, but that's not saying much. I like Coetzee's writing, but only in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way; I've never found his books very involving for some reason, a bit too dry, too short of real emotion. This one is no exception.
We have the usual Coetzee themes here, a sort of existentialist look at the struggle that is life. Set in post-apartheid South Africa, a university professor is forced to resign after seducing one of his students and goes to live with his daughter in the country; they suffer at the hands of robbers, life is a struggle (but he still finds a woman to have sex with). C'est la vie. The bleakness of the story and the unpleasantness of the main character make it a difficult book to like, and we also have to put up with some tedious and seemingly irrelevant stuff about Byron, the subject of an opera that the professor is trying to write. Although partially redeemed by good writing, I fail to grasp why this book is so highly rated. I get the impression that Coetzee is one of those writers, like Philip Roth, that some male readers of a certain type (they always seem to be male) feel they must praise regardless. Or perhaps I'm just missing something.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully tragic,
By Alexis Paladin (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Disgrace (Paperback)
It is interesting to read the reactions to Disgrace and particularly to its two main characters David Lurie and his daughter Lucy. Most readers seem to have a very poor opinion of Lurie and even those who do not overtly dislike him appear to agree that he is self-obsessed and/or some kind of sexual deviant. Surely it is closer to the truth to say that he is among the most genuinely realistic middle-aged male characters ever created. He is admittedly driven by some selfish instincts but is that not true of all people? Is Lurie not in fact a more admirable person because he understands himself, his desires and impulses? To criticise him is to criticise human-kind, well maybe man-kind and that is perhaps why some people find him so uncomfortable to read. His attitudes towards women form one of the novel's central tensions, the age-old struggle between the sexes. He is not unkind or unpleasant to the women in his life, quite the reverse usually, but he does, to an extent objectify and pursue them, like many men. Coetzee does not try to tell us whether this is right or wrong he simply presents it as fact and gives us the opportunity to think about it, to compare it with our own lives and to try to make sense of it.
In exactly the same way he invites us to consider Lucy's attitude as a white South African woman towards her black male attackers. To some people, including her father, her attitude is inexplicable. Instead of hating and seeking revenge she accepts the offence as some kind of inevitable consequence of the years of apartheid and simply refuses to even criticise her assailants. In complete contrast to her father's instinctive id driven life, she deeply feels the collective sins of her race and is anxious to atone for them. As uncomfortable and frustrating as this may be, given the crime she has experienced, she is as 'true' to herself in her way as her father is in his. Coetzee's prose is masterful throughout and is matched by his ability to draw his reader into the complex lives of these people in this muddled and deeply damaged country. Disgrace is not an easy read and it does not offer any easy solutions, but it is extremely well constructed, deeply moving and constantly engaging.
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